In shifting from hurdling to the bobsled, Lolo Jones isn’t just shifting Olympic seasons. She’s also shifting expectations, as she goes from a favorite to an underdog.
That’s not such a bad thing, either, as she told the Associated Press.
“This is the Olympics of the underdogs,” Jones said. “You think about everybody who was supposed to medal who didn’t medal and then you think about just so many people who have kind of come up and got a first medal. It’s been a really weird Olympics. You go down the line like Shaun White, Shani Davis, who else we have, Heather (Richardson) ... it’s been definitely a year of the underdogs. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
She’s also never won an Olympic medal, and many would expect that to remain the same as she is in the United States’ bottom pairing with Jazmine Fenlator. Even with long odds, the 31-year-old makes no mistake about her goals.
“I think every Olympian goes to the Olympics and thinks about a medal,” Jones said. “If you’re not going and thinking about a medal, you shouldn’t go.”
In the meantime, she also seems like she’s really enjoying herself (at least when she isn’t “quarantined”).
